The Second-Best Deus Ex Is Stupid Cheap (And DRM-Free), But Hurry

We may never get another Deus Ex game featuring Elias Toufexis’ lovely voice as Adam Jensen again, but right now you can snag Human Revolution, the debut of our sunglass-wearing badass cyborg, for less than five bucks and, since it’s on GOG, there’s no DRM, meaning you can back up copies of it, responsibly lend it to your friends and family members, or just enjoy the fact that you actually own this copy. The sale ends on Thursday evening, July 17, 2025.

Suggested ReadingThe Week In Games: A Rebirth, A Remake, And A Remaster

Suggested ReadingRead More: Deus Ex: Human Revolution: The Kotaku Review

Released back in 2011 for PS3, Xbox 360, and Windows PCs, Human Revolution may have been the third game in the Deus Ex franchise, but it served as a narrative prequel to the first game. Featuring a brand new protagonist, Human Revolution wound back the clock on some of the series’ far future, cyberpunk tech, showing how both society and secretive shadowy conspiracy groups would respond to the development of cybernetic body components and the “augmented” people who choose or need to use them. Though it presents a somber, dystopic portrait of an overly teched-up society, it aspired to give that world a unique, Renaissance-era visual sensibility that developer Eidos-Montréal referred to as “cyber-renaissance.”

Read More: The Best Game Of All Time Just Turned 25 Years Old

Human Revolution enjoyed positive reception from critics upon release, though some weren’t fans of its boss fights. While I didn’t enjoy those moments either, I found the game to deliver exactly the kind of moody cyberpunk narrative about what it means to be a human being I was looking for, wrapped in a challenging hybrid of immersive sim and action RPG. Human Revolution was the first game I played after going a few years without touching a video game, and I was stuck to it for a solid 19 hours straight on my first playthrough.

While it arguably doesn’t reach the same heights as the original Deus Ex, and doesn’t offer as much of an im-sim experience as the 2003 sequel Invisible War, I found its story to be a bit more thought provoking and grounded, even if it does still end up being about the illuminati. Meanwhile Human Revolution’s own sequel, Mankind Divided, flew too close to the sun with its direct appropriation of real-life, contemporary activist causes and rhetoric, applying them to its own story in ways that felt hamfisted and tone deaf.

When you consider that it’s highly unlikely we’ll see a new Deus Ex, at least any time soon, I think snagging this little chapter in the franchise for such a low price is pretty sweet. The fact that it comes without DRM on top of that is a nice bonus.

.